Enterprise Cloud Security Firm Qualys Files For $100 Million IPO

The initial public offering fever that seemed to be sweeping over the tech industry has cooled noticeably in the weeks since Facebook’s much-buzzed-about (and potentially botched) stock market debut. But it’s not a deep freeze in IPO land quite yet. Qualys, a Silicon Valley company that specializes in cloud security software for the enterprise, has just filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission announcing its intent to hold an IPO and sell up to $100 million worth of its stock.

Qualys isn’t exactly a trendy company, but it works in a valuable space: Web security. According to Qualys’ website, it makes a suite of software as a service products that “enables businesses to continuously identify security risks, automate compliance and protect their IT infrastructure from ever-evolving cyber attacks.” It was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California.

Qualys made $1.9 million in profits on $76.2 million in revenue last year, according to the filing. That’s not the biggest profit margin, but top-line growth is on the rise: Qualys made $21 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2012, up nearly 20 percent from its first quarter 2011 revenues. During Q1 2012 Qualys dipped into the red on the bottom line with a net loss of $285,000, which the company attributed to spending more on sales and marketing. Before that, Qualys had been profitable for several years, and it has $30 million in cash on its books.

Qualys has 313 full-time staff, 237 of whom are based in the United States. According to its website, the company’s investors include ABS Ventures, GRP Partners, the Hewlett-Packard Company, Trident Capital and VeriSign. The filing shows that the company’s single biggest shareholder, however, is its longtime CEO Philippe Courtot, who owns 39 percent of the company’s shares; Trident Capital holds 27 percent.